Brooks Lee, Royce Lewis emerge from slumps to power Twins past Angels

MINNEAPOLIS — Welcome back, Brooks Lee. Glad to see you again, Royce Lewis.

The Twins’ young infielders, both wrestling through maddeningly long hitless slumps, each provided a two-run double on Wednesday, leading the Twins to a 6-4 victory over the Angels at Target Field.

The win allowed the Twins to stave off any encroachment by Boston, Detroit or Seattle in the wild-card race, and keep pace with the Guardians and Royals in the AL Central race.

And short of a return of their highest-paid stars, injured Carlos Correa and Byron Buxton, the Twins could hardly receive better news over the season’s final 16 games than ramped-up contributions from Lee and Lewis.

Lee, the Twins’ fill-in shortstop, ended his 0-for-19 week at the best possible moment on Wednesday, capping a three-run fourth inning by doubling home Trevor Larnach and Willi Castro. That pair of runs, on a line drive that traveled 395 feet before bouncing just in front of the bullpens in left-center, followed Castro’s first RBI of September, on a single up the middle.

Lee’s hit was the fourth in five batters against Angels starter Jack Kochanowicz, the lone exception in that rally being Lewis’ caught-looking strikeout that extended his own slump to 0 for 22.

But Lewis snapped that stretch with a leadoff single in the sixth inning, though the rally didn’t amount to much. An inning later, though, with the Angels trailing by just 4-3?

Different story.

Reliever Brock Burke surrendered a single to Christian Vázquez and a double off the right-field wall to Kyle Farmer. An intentional walk to Carlos Santana, sandwiched between a pair of strikeouts, brought up Lewis with bases loaded. Angels manager Ron Washington summoned veteran right-hander Hunter Strickland from the bullpen, but Lewis was ready for the moment.

He cracked a 1-0 sinker to the fence in left field and umpires initially signaled that Lewis had hit his sixth career grand slam. But a video review showed the ball bounced off the padding atop the wall and was in play, and Lewis was sent back to second base with a two-run double.

Along with Matt Wallner’s third home run of the past week, a solo job in the first inning that carried to the back of the Twins’ bullpen, 435 feet away, the Twins’ offense allowed Rocco Baldelli to manage with noticeably increased urgency with the season down to its final 16 games.

Baldelli pulled starting pitcher Zebby Matthews after just 61 pitches over 3 1/3 innings, unwilling to gamble that the rookie right-hander could successfully maneuver through the top of the Angels’ batting order a third time. Matthews allowed only two runs, both on solo home runs by Taylor Ward to lead off the game, and rookie Nolan Schanuel to lead off the third inning.

But with a day off on Thursday, and his most trusted relievers having not pitched in the series, Baldelli broke some of his usual patterns. He signaled for Cole Sands in the fourth inning, the earliest Sands has been used in more than a month. He brought in Jorge Alcalá to finish off the fifth inning, which he did with one pitch: Mickey Moniak was thrown out trying to steal.

Alcala remained in for the sixth, and surrendered Jordyn Adams’ first career home run to temporarily pull the Angels within a run.

But Griffin Jax, with more than a dozen family members in the announced crowd of 15,660, retired the Angels on eight pitches in the seventh, so Baldelli gave him the eighth, too. Jax got three more outs on 12 pitches, completing his first six-out assignment since July 4, 2022 — 173 appearances ago.

Jhoan Duran allowed a three singles in the ninth, with Schanuel driving in a run to boost Duran’s ERA above 4.00 for the first time since mid-May, but he still earned his 23rd save in 25 opportunities, and the Twins walked away with just their second series win in their last seven series.